toddl said:

---

Huge 2nd place for Kelsey (behind Katelyn, of course). Great to see her at that level. I kept my expectations at a minimum.
Bit of a disappointment for 4th and 5th, but putting Starliper back in the lineup will fix a lot of that.

---

Yep same situation as last year when we held out Hannah Steelman and lost to New Mexico. Looks like they'll pip us by a tiebreaker 6th runner but without Starliper thats not a bad result.

Bush had a weird drop from 1st to 23rd between 2 and 4k and Seymour had a rough last 2k dropping 17 spots. But that can happen in fields of this quality and size

take it back, apparently 6th runner isn't tiebreaker here. Looks like we win based on head to head (our 1 beat their 1, our 2 beat their 2, and our 4 beat their 4, they won 3 and 5 spots).

A 12.7 second spread for New Mexico's top 5 is insane. That is how you keep a low team score at nationals. I'd still favor State with Starliper running and Chmiel already in this kind of form, but it won't be easy.

I hope everyone enjoyed my ongoing edited commentary. Sorry about the confusion, when we first won 79-80, then the site updated and it was tied 80-80 and I thought tie went to #6 runner, but turns out it goes to head to head.

Big win for NC State, and the first national champion to win at Nuttycombe the next year. So that is good. But I think this illustrates that New Mexico is right on our tail.

Check out the huge hug Katelyn gives Kelsey at the finish!

https://instagr.am/p/Cjs__EFAXay

Love it.

Even if we get Starliper back, I'm really concerned about whether we'll be able to beat New Mexico and win it all at Nationals. The spread on New Mexico's top 5 is so small, which will benefit them in a larger field. Bush and Seymour had beaten all of the New Mexico runners two weeks ago at Notre Dame, but today they finished behind New Mexico's top three. So it seems New Mexico's runners are better right now at longer distance, and at harder courses (Notre Dame was a 5k and flat, while Nuttycombe is 6k and has some hills). We may still win at Nationals, but it will be close even if we have Starliper. It seems that Seymour is better on flatter courses, and that course in Stillwater is a killer with the hills. But Nationals is still five weeks away, and hopefully Coach Henes has the training set up so that they peak at Nationals. New Mexico beat us at Nuttycombe last year, and we had sat out Steelman. But then we beat New Mexico by a significant margin at Nationals last year...so maybe New Mexico has a pattern of peaking earlier in the season and/or Henes has a history of getting us to peak at the end.

Nuttycombe recap:

https://www.ustfccca.org/2022/10/featured/weekend-recap-nuttycombe-wisconsin-invitational-augustana-interregional-connecticut-college

Quote:

---

A highly anticipated matchup lived up to expectations.

No. 1 NC State went 1-2 at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, but needed the tiebreaker to hold off No. 2 New Mexico in a memorable battle of NCAA powers.

Katelyn Tuohy won the individual title 19:44.3, five seconds ahead of teammate Kelsey Chmiel (19:49.4) running her first race of the season (Chmiel was runner-up at this race for the second year in a row). Tuohy broke away just after the 4k point with a move that no one could answer.

The team race was incredible, thanks to a fantastic finish by New Mexico. After 4k, the Wolfpack had an unofficial score of 79 compared to the second-place Lady Lobos' 130.

New Mexico finished with a flourish in the final 2k, with every scorer improving position three by double digits. The timing system showed a final tally of 80 for both squads, bringing the tiebreaker into play for the first time in meet history for a team title.

In the tiebreaker, each team's five scorers are matched head-to-head, with the nod going to who wins more. NC State (1-2-18-23-36) won 3-2 over New Mexico (8-9-12-25-26), but it was still very close. The separation between the Wolfpack's Sydney Seymour in 23rd and the Lady Lobos' Elise Thorner in 25th was just 0.2 seconds in NC State's favor.

New Mexico won last year's Nuttycombe Invitational 93-102 over NC State, but the Wolfpack got the last laugh in November when they won the NCAA title. The Lady Lobos finished third in Tallahassee, Florida.

The super-charged field (24 of the top-30 ranked NCAA DI teams) even saw a close battle for third as No. 4 Northern Arizona (244) edged No. 5 BYU (252) and No. 10 Notre Dame (257). No. 11 North Carolina was sixth (280), just ahead of No. 8 Stanford (285).

---

interivew with Katelyn after the race:

https://instagr.am/p/CjtQORdJV6J

GuerrillaPack said:

---

Even if we get Starliper back, I'm really concerned about whether we'll be able to beat New Mexico and win it all at Nationals. The spread on New Mexico's top 5 is so small, which will benefit them in a larger field. Bush and Seymour had beaten all of the New Mexico runners two weeks ago at Notre Dame, but today they finished behind New Mexico's top three. So it seems New Mexico's runners are better right now at longer distance, and at harder courses (Notre Dame was a 5k and flat, while Nuttycombe is 6k and has some hills). We may still win at Nationals, but it will be close even if we have Starliper. It seems that Seymour is better on flatter courses, and that course in Stillwater is a killer with the hills. But Nationals is still five weeks away, and hopefully Coach Henes has the training set up so that they peak at Nationals. New Mexico beat us at Nuttycombe last year, and we had sat out Steelman. But then we beat New Mexico by a significant margin at Nationals last year...so maybe New Mexico has a pattern of peaking earlier in the season and/or Henes has a history of getting us to peak at the end.

---

Good assessment. I'm hoping that that the gap between Tuohy and Chmiel will be higher at nationals as well with a bigger field.

In general I think today is a wake up call for our girls. I still feel good about nationals but certainly New Mexico proved that they have what it takes to win if we slip up at all.

Wolfpack0503 said:

---

GuerrillaPack said:

---

Even if we get Starliper back, I'm really concerned about whether we'll be able to beat New Mexico and win it all at Nationals. The spread on New Mexico's top 5 is so small, which will benefit them in a larger field. Bush and Seymour had beaten all of the New Mexico runners two weeks ago at Notre Dame, but today they finished behind New Mexico's top three. So it seems New Mexico's runners are better right now at longer distance, and at harder courses (Notre Dame was a 5k and flat, while Nuttycombe is 6k and has some hills). We may still win at Nationals, but it will be close even if we have Starliper. It seems that Seymour is better on flatter courses, and that course in Stillwater is a killer with the hills. But Nationals is still five weeks away, and hopefully Coach Henes has the training set up so that they peak at Nationals. New Mexico beat us at Nuttycombe last year, and we had sat out Steelman. But then we beat New Mexico by a significant margin at Nationals last year...so maybe New Mexico has a pattern of peaking earlier in the season and/or Henes has a history of getting us to peak at the end.

---

Good assessment. I'm hoping that that the gap between Tuohy/Chmiel and UNM's top runners will be higher at nationals as well with a bigger field making up for what could be a bigger gap between their fifth vs our fifth.

In general I think today is a wake up call for our girls. I still feel good about nationals but certainly New Mexico proved that they have what it takes to win if we slip up at all.

---

The NC State women's cross country team won its third straight meet, finishing first at the Nuttycombe Invitational.

The Wolfpack, the No. 1 team in the country, finished ahead of New Mexico and Northern Arizona in the final standings. NC State and Nex Mexico were tied at 80, but the Pack edged the Lobos in the tiebreaker. When the teams finish in a tie, each teams five scorers are matched head-to-head.

Katelyn Tuohy continued her impressive sophomore campaign, winning the women's 6K Championship, finishing with a time of 19.44.3. Kelsey Chmiel finished second behind Tuohy with a time of 19.49.4.

NC State had seven runners finish in the top 50. Samantha Bush (20.11.9) finished 18th and Sydney Seymour (20.17.8) finished 23rd, giving the Pack four runners in the top 25.

Nevada Mareno (20.25.3) came in 36th, Mariah Howlett (20.29.4) finished 45th and Gionna Quarzo (20.31.8) finished 48th.


Up next: Both cross country teams will compete at the ACC championships on Oct. 28 in Charlottesville, Va.


https://gopack.com/news/2022/10/14/cross-country-nc-state-wraps-up-regular-season-at-nuttycombe-invitational.aspx

NC State men's and women's cross country teams made a pair of road trips to the Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, Wisconsin and the ECU Pirate Invitational in Greenville, North Carolina to round out their regular season. With the ACC Championships just two weeks away, these meets provided one final tune-up for the Wolfpack heading into the postseason.

Nuttycombe Invitational

The No. 1 women's team secured the top spot out of 36 teams in Madison. The Pack's one-two punch of junior Katelyn Tuohy and senior Kelsey Chmiel took first and second place, respectively, in the women's 6k championship.

Tuohy led the field with a stellar performance, as her time of 19:44.3 lagged just 1.2 seconds shy of her collegiate personal best. Chmiel secured silver for the Wolfpack, clocking in at 19:49.4.

Senior Sam Bush and graduates Sydney Seymour and Nevada Mareno were the other runners that scored for NC State, finishing 18th, 23rd and 36th, respectively. Mareno also came extremely close to her personal best, missing by just 2.2 seconds with a 20:25.3.

Bush came up agonizingly short in a three-way dash for 16th place behind Stanford's Zofia Dudek and Notre Dame's Olivia Markezich, respectively, as less than one-tenth of a second separated the three runners. On the flip side, Seymour eked out 23rd with a time of 20:17.8 while three runners trailed within 0.6 seconds of her, including two for New Mexico.

Redshirt senior Mariah Howlett, junior Gionna Quarzo and sophomore Brooke Rauber rounded out the action of the Wolfpack in the championship race. Howlett clocked in at 20:29.4 for 45th place, just 2.3 seconds short of her personal-best time, but Quarzo actually reached her personal-best mark, finishing 48th with a time of 20:31.8. Rauber finished at 21:02.0 for 124th place.

The men's team finished 10th out of 33 teams at the 8k championship race. Juniors Brett Gardner and Ian Harrison were the Pack's top two performers, finishing 48th and 53th, respectively. Also scoring for the men were graduate Robinson Snider in 72nd, graduate Ian Shanklin in 79th and junior Dan McGoey in 115th.

Four of the Wolfpack's top five finishers set personal bests in the race. Only Shanklin and juniors Travis Koekemoer and Kevin Antczak, who finished 203rd and 208th, respectively, missed out on the party.

ECU Pirate Invitational

While the Pack didn't field enough runners to place in the men's or women's team standings at the ECU Pirate Invitational, the event featured first-place finishes from NC State runners competing unattached. Freshman Grace Hartman took the top spot in the women's 6k with a time of 20:53.59 while graduate Gavin Gaynor earned first in the men's 8k with a 24:15.04.

The Wolfpack sent three total runners for the women's race, each of them finishing in the top 10. Freshman Briley Bickerstaff also ran unattached, finishing fourth at 21:33.60. Redshirt junior Lulu Black was the runner officially representing NC State; she clocked a 22:14.08 to finish 10th.

Six total men's runners made the trip from Raleigh to Greenville, all finishing in the top 25. Junior Zach Hughes, senior Ben Verchick and redshirt junior Kyle Durham officially represented the Pack, finishing sixth, ninth and 14th, respectively. Other than Gaynor, freshmen Ryan Motondo and Patrick Gibbons ran unattached, with the latter two finishing 10th and 25th, respectively.

https://www.technicianonline.com/sports/nc-state-cross-country-wraps-up-regular-season-at-nuttycombe-ecu-pirate-invitationals/article_c8905ac2-4c1c-11ed-87fe-370cd0cffdc7.html

The Stride report released their updated team rankings at the end of the regular season and the NC State women have maintained 1st place after holding on to win in tiebreaker fashion over New Mexico at Nuttycombe. The return of Kelsey Chmiel was a huge buoy to the team and was able to offset Bush and Seymour fading towards the end and Starliper not running. If Starliper returns and is able to stay relatively close to Seymour and Bush State will still be title favorites.

I was thinking about this some more...one thing that could help NC State versus New Mexico is that there is a substantial gap between Tuohy and Chmiel and New Mexico's #1 runner. At Nationals, compared to the results at Nuttycombe there will probably be an additional ~10 runners that will finish between Tuohy and Chmiel and New Mexico's #1 runner (including Roe and Cook from Oklahoma State, Parker Valby, Alabama's top 2 runners, McCabe, etc). So doing a very rough scoring estimate at Nationals, this will result in adding around 10 points to all five of New Mexico's runners (50 points) from their score at Nuttycombe, while only adding about about 30 points to NC State....with all things being equal -- which would be a rough estimate of a score of 130 for New Mexico at Nationals and 110 for NC State. But hopefully we get Starliper at Nationals and Bush and Seymour run better at nationals than they did at Nuttycombe, and we could project NC State scoring about 90 points at Nationals.

jadawson said:

---

The Stride report released their updated team rankings at the end of the regular season and the NC State women have maintained 1st place after holding on to win in tiebreaker fashion over New Mexico at Nuttycombe. The return of Kelsey Chmiel was a huge buoy to the team and was able to offset Bush and Seymour fading towards the end and Starliper not running. If Starliper returns and is able to stay relatively close to Seymour and Bush State will still be title favorites.

---

So, State's "regular season" was two races?

TheStorm said:

---

So, State's "regular season" was two races?

---

Three (Adidas Challenge, Joe Piane, and Nuttycombe). Cross country is unique in that there's very few races in the season, and also many of the top runners sit out the early races in the season. ACC Championships and Nationals are the two races that really matter.

I'm making the drive up to Charlottesville on October 28th for the ACC Championships.

NC State women remain #1 in the latest national poll, still receiving all 11 first place votes.

https://www.ustfccca.org/2022/10/featured/2022-ncaa-di-womens-cross-country-national-coaches-poll-week-5

TheStorm said:

---

jadawson said:

---

The Stride report released their updated team rankings at the end of the regular season and the NC State women have maintained 1st place after holding on to win in tiebreaker fashion over New Mexico at Nuttycombe. The return of Kelsey Chmiel was a huge buoy to the team and was able to offset Bush and Seymour fading towards the end and Starliper not running. If Starliper returns and is able to stay relatively close to Seymour and Bush State will still be title favorites.

---

So, State's "regular season" was two races?

---

Regular season is effectively worthless. If you're confident in your team, you don't have to race at all until conference championships. Race at conference, finish top two at regionals to qualify for nationals, race at nationals. If you don't finish top two at regionals, you'll need some regular season points to get in as an at-large team.

toddl said:

---

TheStorm said:

---

jadawson said:

---

The Stride report released their updated team rankings at the end of the regular season and the NC State women have maintained 1st place after holding on to win in tiebreaker fashion over New Mexico at Nuttycombe. The return of Kelsey Chmiel was a huge buoy to the team and was able to offset Bush and Seymour fading towards the end and Starliper not running. If Starliper returns and is able to stay relatively close to Seymour and Bush State will still be title favorites.

---

So, State's "regular season" was two races?

---

Regular season is effectively worthless. If you're confident in your team, you don't have to race at all until conference championships. Race at conference, finish top two at regionals to qualify for nationals, race at nationals. If you don't finish top two at regionals, you'll need some regular season points to get in as an at-large team.

---

Yep. Its important to remember that with how the NCAA is structured, distance runners are in a competitive season for the whole school year with XC, Indoor and outdoor track. Structuring the regular season as being unimportant from an individual perspective allows coaches to sit and rest runners as needed to make sure they are rested and not burned out when they need to be at their best.

The Stride Report released their end of regular season individual rankings today.

NC State came in like this:

Katelyn Tuohy 1 (no change)

Kelsey Chmiel 6 (+4)

Samantha Bush 19 (-11)

Sydney Seymour 28 (-10)

Marlee Starliper 35 (-6)

This pretty much reflects the race from last friday, Tuohy is Tuohy, Chmiel impressed, Bush and Seymour were a a little off at the end of the race, and Starliper didn't run.

For reference, New Mexico looked like this

14, 15, 18, 37, 48

jadawson said:

---

The Stride Report released their end of regular season individual rankings today.

NC State came in like this:

Katelyn Tuohy 1 (no change)

Kelsey Chmiel 6 (+4)

Samantha Bush 19 (-11)

Sydney Seymour 28 (-10)

Marlee Starliper 35 (-6)

This pretty much reflects the race from last friday, Tuohy is Tuohy, Chmiel impressed, Bush and Seymour were a a little off at the end of the race, and Starliper didn't run.

For reference, New Mexico looked like this

14, 15, 18, 37, 48

---

Thanks. Of course the scoring wouldn't exactly work out like this, but based on those rankings it would predict a rough scoring estimate at Nationals of 89 for NC State and 132 for New Mexico.

side note, i would love it if the women moved up to 8k for regionals and nationals. The men move from 8k to 10k for the regional and national events and it feels like it adds to the scale and hype of the events. I've never understood just running another 6k when these women have all raced each other across 6k likely multiple times already that season has always felt a little weird to me.

Or just make them equal and run 8k's and 10k's on the women's side too. They all run the same distances on the track, why cant they in xc?

Frankly I think 10k is too long for the men. Really limits the type of runner that you use. Having 1500/3000 specialists during track season have to jump all the way to 10k always seemed a little off to me. 10k is the absolute longest event on the track that only gets run by a handful of runners. XC could (should?) be something a little more accessible for more runners on the track team.
I seem to recall seeing some informal surveys from women runners about moving to a longer distance, and the response was overwhelmingly against. But that's all just going from memory.

toddl said:

---

Frankly I think 10k is too long for the men. Really limits the type of runner that you use. Having 1500/3000 specialists during track season have to jump all the way to 10k always seemed a little off to me. 10k is the absolute longest event on the track that only gets run by a handful of runners. XC could (should?) be something a little more accessible for more runners on the track team.
I seem to recall seeing some informal surveys from women runners about moving to a longer distance, and the response was overwhelmingly against. But that's all just going from memory.

---

I get that. 10k is a big jump for freshman and a daunting challenge for many athletes. I'd be fine with 8k for both. But XC is a different sport than track, it doesnt need to be catered to 1500 M runners. XC is a long distance sport and season. Some middle distance athletes may not be well acclimated for it and thats ok, sprinters dont run cross country either.

I know there is a movement from some former women's runners to raise the distance. They want the distances equalized whether thats 8k or 10k. A lot of former women's champions and olympians are among the group. Molly Huddle, Kara Goucher our own Joan Benoit etc,. Kara Goucher has talked about when there were concerns in decreasing women's participation when the distance was raised from 5k to 6k in 2000 but participation went up for each of the 5 years afterwards, and now 6k isn't thought of negatively at all.

At the pro level the USATF XC championships are 10k for both. Europe is raising the women's championship for their own XC championships to be equal in 2023. They both run 5k in high school. The NCAA will be the only level where the distances aren't equal between men and women.

jadawson said:

---

NC State came in like this:

1. Katelyn Tuohy
2. Kelsey Chmiel
3. Samantha Bush
4. Sydney Seymour
5. Marlee Starliper
6. ?

---

You guys all seem to follow the sport pretty closely, and I like to learn from others that know far more about certain subjects than I do... now, I know that this brings personal opinion into play (which is what I'm looking for here actually), but - barring injury, etc. - a) how would you rank the order of just our team?, and b) is there a #6 or #7 that's capable of being top 5, all other things being equal?

Thanks in advance.

TheStorm said:

---

jadawson said:

---

NC State came in like this:

1. Katelyn Tuohy
2. Kelsey Chmiel
3. Samantha Bush
4. Sydney Seymour
5. Marlee Starliper
6. ?

---

You guys all seem to follow the sport pretty closely, and I like to learn from others that know far more about certain subjects than I do... now, I know that this brings personal opinion into play (which is what I'm looking for here actually), but - barring injury, etc. - a) how would you rank the order of just our team?, and b) is there a #6 or #7 that's capable of being top 5, all other things being equal?

Thanks in advance.

---

The 5 listed there are who i would have in that same order.

The only person imo who has the ability to break into that top 5 is I could see Savannah Shaw being the #5 if a) she races again this season, and b) she figures out how to put it all together in xc. She has a similar 5k pr on the track to Bush, Seymour and Starliper but for whatever reason she's never been able to run with that same group in XC.

Outside of that, Nevada Mareno, Mariah Howlett, Gionna Quarzo are pretty locked in at 6-8 (without Shaw) and are pretty interchangeable in those spots. But i don't really see any of them beating any of our top 5 unless one of the top 5 has a poor race.

Here's a good interview with Samantha Bush from just a few days ago, talking about her career and the rest of the season. The interviewer is a little long-winded, and so there's more time hearing him talk than Sam, but overall it's still well worth a listen. The interview is free for anyone to view for 7 more days, but then after that will require a subscription to the site to view.

One very interesting thing in this interview was that Sam said she talked with Coach Henes after her sophomore year (in the spring of 2021), and considered quitting the sport because she didn't feel like she was progressing as much in her running as she wanted to. Sam was not a part of the top 7 on the team for each of her first two years in cross country. Coach Henes advised her to stick it out and that they were going to increase her mileage prior to next year, and Coach believed that her results would improve. Then, of course, the next fall season (2021) was the team national championship, and Sam was the 5th runner on that team and an all-American in cross country, and then went on to win the ACC championship in the 5,000m outdoor, and was all-American in 5000m outdoor (10th in the nation).

https://acc-cross-country-championships.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=1509&do=videos&video_id=337429

The North Carolina State cross country teams will begin postseason play at the ACC Championships on Friday, Oct. 28.

The meet will be hosted by the University of Virginia, with the men's race starting at 10:40 a.m. and the women starting at 11:30 a.m. The NC State women's team will be going for a seventh straight ACC title, which would tie a school record.

This year's ACC championships will feature three top-10 team women's teams and five ranked ACC teams overall. The men's side includes seven teams ranked in the top 30, including four in the top 15.

Meet information | Live results | ACCN Broadcast

ACC CHAMPIONSHIPS MEET SCHEDULE

10:40 a.m. - Men's Championship 8K
11:30 a.m. - Women's Championship 6K

https://gopack.com/news/2022/10/27/cross-country-nc-state-cross-country-heads-to-charlottesville-for-acc-championships.aspx

trying to distract myself from this horrid football game i've been browsing xc info on my phone. Doesn't look like either Starliper or Shaw will run tomorrow, they dont show on the list of runners we registered. We certainly dont need them to win tomorrow but does cause some level of concern for the more important races to come.

Also,

The Stride Report put out their preview for ACC conference champs. NC state women are a given to win so they didn't spend too much time on them. They think all 4 of Tuohy, Chmiel, Seymour and Bush will come in the top 5, which kind of shows why Starliper and Shaw aren't that important tomorrow.

NC State women win the ACC cross country championship, but it was much closer than expected. 34 for NC State and 38 for Notre Dame. Tuohy, Chmiel, Bush went 1,2,5, but then we went 10, 16 with Rauber and Quarzo. Mareno was 19 and Seymour fell
To 29.

Seymour has been a consistent top 5 scorers for us so you have to wonder if she had any injury today.

Notre Dame looked great today. They are ranked nationally #6 so they are good. But if we want to win nationals we probably will need Starliper, Seymour, or Shaw to step back up. I just hope we are totally healthy for nationals.

Women's results! pic.twitter.com/lFhnxVThte

— Pack Track & Field and Cross Country (@Wolfpack_TFXC) October 28, 2022

All-ACC members pic.twitter.com/GwvIZ7s9Hw

— Pack Track & Field and Cross Country (@Wolfpack_TFXC) October 28, 2022

The final stretch for Katelyn and Kelsey. #GoPack #Packmentality pic.twitter.com/Bu3s6Di9TS

— Pack Track & Field and Cross Country (@Wolfpack_TFXC) October 28, 2022